Summary of Nussbaum: "Love's Knowledge"

Chapter 11, which is entitled Love’s Knowledge and is written by Martha C. Nussbaum, discusses the question of the essence of love and teach how to understand whether a particular feeling experience by a person is true love or not. The discussion is based on Proust’s philosophy and counterarguments provided by both the author herself and other critiques with regard to this philosophy. It also takes into consideration the ways in which love is manifested in literary works. Among various pieces of literature that offer unique attitudes to love’s knowledge in a way that is completely different from the one suggested by Proust, Nussbaum (1990) chooses to analyze a short story entitled Learning to fall by Ann Beattie. It is considered to be the sample of a vast majority of literary works that tell about what love is and how people come to know that they feel love. The author’s article is divided into several subchapters, which help to segment the narration into coherent parts, and facilitate the comprehension of the overall idea. Each of the parts focuses on a particular aspect pertinent to the general topic of the discussion. The work includes the following subchapters: Introduction, Knowledge of the Heart by Intellectual Scrutiny, the Cataleptic Impression: Knowledge in Suffering, Cataleptic Impressions and the Science of Life, Catalepsis Ordered by Reflection: Proust’s Final View, Learning to Fall, and Forms of Discourse and Arts of Life. Overall, the main objective of the reading is to determine whether philosophers or authors of literary works are more successful in explaining the essence of love and introducing the ways to identify the feeling of true love. Basing on the overview of Proust’s positions on love and love’s knowledge, derived from cataleptic suffering, and criticism of this position with the consideration of other potential views, including the one suggested by literary works, Nussbaum (1990) comes to a conclusion that philosophy and literature should cooperate harmoniously in this respect, and are in fact mutually beneficial when they deal with the notion of love.

Each of the subchapters mentioned above presents some key ideas expressed by the author, which then make a general coherent and cohesive discussion of love and love’s knowledge presented in the chapter under consideration. Thus, introduction presents a brief overview of Proust’s philosophy of love, which is based on his novel about Marcel and Albertine, and emphasizes that Proust believes that “knowledge of the heart” cannot be really studied with the help of psychology or any other science and intellectual endeavors (Nussbaum, 1990, p. 261, par. 3). In turn, this knowledge can derive only from the heart itself, i.e. from miscellaneous feeling and emotions evoked in response to some external stimuli like the death of a beloved one, as is the case with Marcel. Hence, one of the key objectives of the reading under consideration is to critically analyze this position of Proust, and present an alternative view on the knowledge of love on the basis of Beattie’s short story. In the process of analyzing these views about love and the knowledge of love, Nussbaum (1990) also discusses the relationships between philosophy and literature, as well as notes some peculiarities that are related to the philosophical criticism of literature.

In the subchapter that is entitled Knowledge of the Heart by Intellectual Scrutiny, Nussbaum (1990) provides a brief overview of the Proust’s ideas about the ways how people identify love with a specific focus on self-deception that is common for this process and can prevent people from learning the truth about their love. Besides, this subchapter presents an innovative view that is opposite to the one expressed by Proust in his novel. According to this Nussbaum’s view, individuals can learn about their feelings and determine whether these feelings can be considered to be love only through “a detached, unemotional, exact intellectual scrutiny of one’s condition, conducted in a way a scientist would conduct a piece of research” (Nussbaum, 1990, p. 262, par. 3). This view has a powerful base and enjoys widespread support in the philosophical tradition, for instance, being supported by Locke and Plato. Yet this idea is contrary to the one presented by Proust and his supporters. Proust’s thoughts about the knowledge of love are presented in the subchapter entitled Cataleptic Impression: Knowledge in Suffering. Thus, Proust believes that the intellectual scrutiny that is considered to bring benefits to the analysis of the heart’s condition, in fact, conceals the truth and prevents people from learning the truth about love (Nussbaum, 1990, p. 264). The only way to learn about the condition of one’s heart is to “remove such powerful obstacles to truth” by using an instrument that is “the subtlest, most powerful, most appropriate for grasping the truth”, which is suffering (Nussbaum, 1990, p. 264, par. 3). Such position of Proust about the immense power of suffering and its capability to reveal the truth about love is consistent with the position of another philosopher Zene, who believes that knowledge of the external world can be obtained only through the peculiar perceptual impressions such as pain and suffering that are the most powerful (Nussbaum, 1990, p. 265). Thanks to the power inherent in sufferings, Proust considers this perceptual impression to be cataleptic, and supposes that only suffering can reveal the true knowledge of love.

In the subchapter called Cataleptic Impressions and the Science of Life, Nussbaum (1990) discusses Proust’s position and the opposite view that emphasize the importance of intellectual scrutiny with the aim to find out which of them seems to be more accurate. Besides, this part offers some criticism of the Proust’s position, including critical consideration of the notion of suffering as the most powerful cataleptic impression for learning the truth about the heart’s condition. Nussbaum does not agree that suffering is the most powerful and applicable cataleptic impression that may help to reveal the knowledge of love, as it is highly self-centered and negates the true essence of love, which considers interests and awareness of the other person that is loved (Nussbaum, 1990, p. 269).